The White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood has called a Saturday Night Live (SNL) sketch that impersonated her using exaggerated prosthetic teeth “mean and unfunny”.
The British actress said the US comedy programme “punched down” on her and suggested the sketch was misogynistic.
In a series of Instagram posts, Wood wrote that she was happy to be made fun of “when it’s clever and in good spirits” but that there “must be a cleverer, more nuanced, less cheap way”.
Wood, 31, said she had received “apologies from SNL” after sharing her criticism. The BBC has contacted broadcaster NBC for a response.
The Manchester-born actress’s role in the third series of The White Lotus, which follows a group of guests at a resort, prompted significant media attention surrounding what she calls her “big gap teeth”.
The SNL sketch, which aired this week, imagined US President Donald Trump and his top team spending time at the fictional hotel.
Wood’s character Chelsea was portrayed by cast member Sarah Sherman using a pronounced accent and fake teeth.
At one point, in a reference to the actress’s teeth, she asks: “Fluoride? What’s that?”
Wood, who burst onto screens in Netflix’s Sex Education, said she was “not thin skinned” and understood that SNL was about “caricature”.
“But the whole joke was about fluoride,” she wrote on Sunday.
“I have big gap teeth not bad teeth.”
“The rest of the skit was punching up,” Wood added, “and I/Chelsea was the only one punched down on”.
She said that she was not “hating on” Sarah Sherman, but “hating on the concept”.
Wood also shared a comment by an unnamed user describing the sketch as “sharp and funny” before taking “a screeching turn into 1970s misogyny”.
“This sums up my view,” the actress added.
She also criticised Sherman’s accent, writing: “I respect accuracy even if it’s mean.”
Wood wrote that she had received “thousands of messages” agreeing with her since sharing her posts, and that she was glad she “said something”.
Speaking to GQ magazine last week, Wood said that the conversation surrounding her teeth made her “a bit sad because I’m not getting to talk about my work”.
“It makes me really happy that it’s symbolising rebellion and freedom, but there’s a limit,” she said.
Wood added: “I don’t know if it was a man would we be talking about it this much? It’s still going on about a woman’s appearance.”
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